


A Form of Protest

by luminousAreWe (infinitelystrangemachine)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dancing, F/M, Finn-centric, Flashbacks, Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Sneaking Out, Stormtrooper Culture, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 22:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14067180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitelystrangemachine/pseuds/luminousAreWe
Summary: Freedom will be his victory - or, Finn will hold on to who he cares about, somehow.





	A Form of Protest

 

“We’re gonna get caught.”

 

“No, we’re not.”

 

“The officers’ quarters are on the way there, we’ll never make it -”

 

“Not with  _that_ attitude, we won’t.”

 

The whispers are punctuated by an abrupt, loud  _slap_ to a plastic-armored rear. In the darkness, FN-2003’s silhouette lurches toward the low ceiling.

 

“Don’t  _do_ that,” he hisses.

 

“Sorry, sorry.” FN-2199’s unseen grin is painted all over his smug voice. “My hand must’ve slipped.”

 

“And Eight-Seven!”

 

FN-2187 falters in his step, surprised. “What, Slip?”

 

“Shut up!”

 

Everyone bursts into strangled snickers, even FN-2000 at his side, who’d been completely silent so far. The noise splurts oddly through the voice modulators in their helmets, and FN-2187 feels his cheeks heat in indignation.

 

“I didn’t say anything!”

 

“Your brain is deafening.  _Phasma’s going to kill me. There goes my sparkly-clean perfect record, guess I’ll die. I wonder what’s for breakfast tomorrow._ ”

 

“I’m not -”

 

“ _Slip got his butt slapped, I must avenge him._ ” It’s FN-2199 again. The silhouette of him leans right up against the fuming FN-2003, nearly sending them both careening into the durasteel wall. “Our intrepid squad leader, noble as ever.”

 

“No one needs Eight-Seven’s help to deal with  _you_ , Nines.”

 

A clatter resounds about the durasteel walls like a ricocheting misfired blaster bolt, originating from their hallway, just ahead of them. They all stop in their tracks. Silence drops as suddenly as though they’d all just been spaced, so suddenly FN-2187 swears his eardrums pop.

 

The squad can tease, but  _he_ had been the one to suggest to the bold Nines that they ditch the bunks tonight, and quiet Zeroes had claimed life-threatening boredom and gone after them, and Slip had scrambled to follow because that is what he always does, this is what they all always do, and it is all FN-2187’s fault.

 

 _He_ had called this shot.  _He_ was responsible. A shadow on the metal floor far in front of them shifts, and his mind turns itself inside out for any explanation, any excuse he can come up with at all -

 

Slip sighs. Unobservant as ever. He ventures forward a step, shouldering past Nines. “It’s just the wind outside, guys, nothing -”

 

FN-2187 doesn’t speak. He just reaches out, grabs Slip by the neck of his uniform, and drags him all the way back, pushing Slip behind him as he has done a thousand times before.

 

Just as the shadow across the floor stretches -

 

A squarish droid trundles across the mouth of the hallway, honking gently. It pays them no mind, and quickly disappears.

 

All four of them sigh out at once. “Just a gonk droid,” Nines groans. “Seven hells.”

 

“Y-yeah,” stutters Slip. He wrenches FN-2187’s hand off his armor. “I, um, could’ve told you that.”

 

FN-2187 sighs, then strides forward, taking the lead with measured steps. “This time, let’s all  _actually_ shut up.”

 

And so they keep going, the adrenaline pounding through FN-2187’s veins still not faded away, and they don’t make it thirty seconds before Nines cannot take not having the last word a second longer and mutters, “Lucky Mama Eight-Seven is here to save us all.”

 

Somehow, no one quite seems able to laugh.

 

* * *

Four years from now, FN-2187 will enter his first battle with Nines, Zeroes, and Slip at his side. They will be separated for the first time, dispersed amongst other elite squads, trusted to make their own way, too far away for FN-2187 to reach.

 

There will be flames, and smoke, and blaster fire, and screams. A rogue bolt from the blackness will fly, and FN-2187 will run, but Slip will catch it in the heart.

 

Slip will die in FN-2187’s arms. He will have to scrub the bloody stripes of the evidence of his squadmate’s life from his helmet himself.

 

For now, FN-2187 leads them all forward.

 

* * *

“Okay, okay, okay.” Finn sucks in a breath, puffs out his cheeks. “Three. Two.  _One_.”

 

He  _lifts_ , fingers digging hard into the undersides of Rose’s thighs. Her hands clench on the meat of his shoulders. This close, he can hear how she stubbornly holds her breath.

 

Her rump settles safely on the ledge, and she  _gasps_.

 

Finn swears and lets her go. His hands hover, lost without orders. “Are you okay?”

 

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” Her voice is tight with pain, but she gives her own braced leg a healthy slap. “Just help me with this.”

 

Obediently, he steps back out of the vee of her legs to take her calf gently in his hands, and while she twists at the waist, he helps her lever the bum leg over the ledge and onto solid ground.

 

“We’re gonna get caught,” he tells her solemnly, right before his mouth twists into a crooked smile.

 

Rose is looking a shade grayer than usual, but she still gives him a  _look_ over her shoulder while he clambers up onto the ledge beside her. “And you’re thinking it’s gonna be  _my_ fault? Poe’s got laser vision when it comes to you.”

 

“Yeah, and he probably saw straight through my head into my brain to watch me  _think_ about us sneaking out. We’re not gonna make it back to the barracks.”

 

He says this not because he believes it - just a few weeks of Resistance-style living have lightened his feet, quickened his thinking - but because someone should be obligated to say it. Rose tilts her head anyway. “Not with  _that_ attitude, we won’t.”

 

“I’ll still blame you,” he warns, and she snorts. He gets to his feet, grabs Rose under the arms, and lifts her to standing, his biceps bulging under Poe’s old jacket.

 

Funny how the strangest things can kick up so much dust, mentally. There’s a sort of blank space in his gut where guilt should be eating at him right about now. The Resistance sacrificed a lot - too much - to keep them all safe and hidden.

 

But if circumstances were even slightly different, it’s obvious - Poe would be here right alongside them right now. He and Finn probably would have carried Rose between them like some alien princess without her palanquin, to her indignant protests.

 

But armies need leaders in wars. Things change.

 

And if  _Rey_ were here - his heart seizes -

 

She would’ve done something ridiculous, something flashy enough to make them all laugh until they really were caught by someone, like levitating them just above her shoulders to make it look like she was carrying them all single handedly -

 

Things change.

 

Rose hisses when her leg straightens fully, but with Finn’s hands tight around her biceps, he only gradually lets her weight descend until finally, she’s standing shakily on her own. The leg doesn’t buckle.

 

It’s  _his_ doing, after all.  _His_ responsibility.

 

“There.” Rose is breathless, sweating a bit. Then, with a jerk, she perks up. “You hear that?”

 

Finn listens - he does. Rhythmic concussions, sharp and low like a giant’s booming footfalls, sounding in the distance. “Yeah -”

 

“It’s just like my homeworld, just like I told you.” Her dark eyes look curiously wet - but before he can say anything, she’s grabbing his hand and hobbling toward the upper mouth of the cavern, toward the stretch of star-spangled sky bared between the rocks. “Let’s go!”

 

He goes - not because he should, but because she should not have to be alone.

 

* * *

Near the starboard wing of the Dissident-class light cruiser is a viewing port, meant as a place for the greysuits to stand and watch the progress of battles. A wide, quartz-glass window covers half the wall and curves up partially over the ceiling.

 

Midflight, it would display stars, planets, the occasional asteroid ambling by in the distance, blocking out the light of distant star systems, the only thing that betrays its position. But they’re planetside, or, uh,  _moonside_ , now - the thought still gives FN-2187 a wild thrill, a real, habitable  _moon_ mere inches below his feet, separated only by mechanisms and steel sheets - and out the window, a wall of enormous, tightly-packed trees fills their view. Browns and greens and blues darkened and muffled by the night, but their shapes easily discernible by the light of the Outer Rim planet hulking above the horizon and reflecting the glow of two setted suns.

 

An indigo patch in the ceiling of the window bares a brilliant spangle of stars. FN-2187 and his squad lounge beneath it, propped up against the walls and a command platform, stripped of their armor to their waists. Any Stormtrooper on patrol that sees them won’t care, this far from the  _Finalizer_. Phasma is the one to worry about, but their false scare from earlier has left them emboldened.

 

Nines scratches his chest absently. His bare fingers rasp against the fabric of his shirt. “What moon is this, again?”

 

“Endor,” FN-2187 supplies automatically. “It’s supposed to be  _full_ of sentients.”

 

“Yeah, and they’re not even human,” Nines returns, remembering the debriefing now. “Savages that’ll tear you limb from limb if they catch you. And then  _eat_ you!”

 

Nines cackles, delighted at the thought. Slip shudders. “They probably  _like_ the taste of Stormtrooper,” he mutters. “Probably ate plenty of them after the Battle of Endor.”

 

“That was years ago, Slip.” Nines yawns. “But you don’t have to worry. The taste of cowardice gives them the runs.”

 

“Ha ha.”

 

FN-2187 frowns to himself. Nines talks like that, but in terms of Slip-saves over the course of their nearly ten years of battle sims together, Nines’ record is second only to FN-2187’s. He’s about to make a comment - something to make Nines switch off for a minute, he hopes - but he’s interrupted by a low, rumbling,  _booming_ noise, coming from outside.

 

Everyone goes painfully still again - the noise continues, steady and rhythmic, until an even stranger noise joins in. Something high and reedy, like someone whistling through their nose, only it sounds marginally better than  _that_  -

 

“It’s okay,” FN-2187 says, even though his own palms are sweating. “Phasma said this would happen.”

 

“What is it?” Nines leans so close to the quartz-glass he nearly presses his bare nose to it. Lights are flickering from deep within the trees, high up off the ground. “Sounds like a droid taking a rusty dump.”

 

“It’s music.”

 

Silence. The others turn where they’re sitting to stare at Zeroes, who is leaning against the command platform with his head lolling lazily, his eyes tired slits. It’s incredibly rare for him to speak these days.

 

Even rarer for him to bring up his past.

 

“That,” Nines hisses, “is  _music_?”

 

Zeroes shrugs. “A form of protest against First Order rule on Endor. Phasma should torch the forest for such disrespect.”

 

An uncomfortable quiet follows this declaration. FN-2187’s stomach rolls. “Zeroes,” he says softly. “You used to talk about music all the time. You  _love_ it.” Memories race before his eyes - nights upon nights of staying up past curfew, listening to Zeroes speak with quiet wonder of his life… his life  _before_. He’d been taken at the age of seven standard years, old by First Order standards.

 

_They’re called Togruta, and the men and women are both so beautiful -_

 

_Zeroes, you’re crazy, you can’t talk about aliens like that -_

 

_No, really, they’re beautiful, and the elders literally know everything, and my parents and I would go to their marketplaces, and they make the most amazing things, weapons and jewelry and everything you can imagine, and the music…._

 

_What’s music like?_

 

_Beautiful sounds. You can make it yourself, or use tools._

 

That was how Zeroes had taught them what  _singing_ really is.

 

Now, FN-2187 looks into Zeroes’ blank stare, and his skin crawls. Zeroes, who had used to go on and on in their youth about all the things he knew, the places and creatures he’d seen.

 

Zeroes frowns at him. “I don’t remember that.”

 

Phasma had been complimenting him a lot lately on his behavioral patterns. “I know you do,” FN-2187 mutters.

 

“Besides, those things out there aren’t human.” Zeroes closes his eyes. “They can burn.”

 

* * *

Four years from now, FN-2187 will not watch Zeroes die. Instead, he will watch him disappear.

 

He doesn’t know it now. None of them do. But for all the rumors of the alien “monsters” that tear humans to shreds at the slightest opportunity - there is only one monster that can tear them apart from the inside out.

 

Four years from now, Zeroes will raise his blaster in their first battle, the one that will take Slip’s life. Zeroes will calmly open fire on unarmed men, women, and children. After the battle, he will be commended. He will vanish into a sea of marching white uniforms, and though FN-2000 will be seen from time to time on various ships and on various planets,  _Zeroes_ will never be seen again.

 

FN-2187 cannot know this. For now, he clings to him the only way he knows how.

 

* * *

“I thought I’d forgotten.” Rose’s voice is thick with unshed tears. “What it sounded like.”

 

“You wouldn’t,” Finn says immediately, adamant. “You never could.”

 

From the great forest lit by the hovering planet comes the music. Finn remembers it - it’s like a scar on the back of his mind, or he’d used to think it was. Remembering it had always felt like a betrayal. Only now, he knows what real scars feel like - a hot wire burns briefly up his back at the thought, another phantom memory - and he thinks he’ll have to reclassify the thought somehow.

 

_A form of protest against First Order rule._

 

“On Hays Minor, my people used to play music all the time.” Rose swallows. “For everything. Holidays. Meals. Celebrations. We may have had nothing, but we did have music.”

 

Finn grins down at her, lifting one eyebrow. “Can you sing?”

 

She shoves him and nearly loses her own balance. “ _No_.”

 

“I had a friend, once, who could. He made his homeworld pretty proud.”

 

“Talk like that, and you’ll be facing your own homeworld before you know it.”

 

A terrible fissure courses through him at that - it shakes him to his bones, and there Rose is still looking at the horizon, listening to the Ewoks of Endor hype themselves up for war. “I don’t have a homeworld, Rose.”

 

She turns, stares up at him hard. “ _Yes_. You do. You just have to find it someday.”

 

That’s one thing Rose is good at - the future. Maybe it was all those years of battle sims, but Finn has a hard time seeing the value in anything past day’s end most of the time.

 

As the music swells, Rose’s face pinches. “You know you don’t have to stay here.”

 

Finn is brought up short. His lips part. “What?”

 

“You’re in a war you didn’t sign up for. A war I almost got you  _killed_ in. If you want to go, you know Poe will let you go.”

 

Oh, they’re in knots, the two of them. Making it up to each other is going to be an infinite task, Penrose Steps all the way up into old age, if they can make it for that long. “I’m gonna be made a commander tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”

 

“That’s not a reason to make yourself stay!”

 

In the heat of her protest, Rose wavers on her feet once again. Finn catches her arm to steady her - they really shouldn’t be standing this close to the ledge’s edge, no matter how fantastic the view - and they’re close again. Not legs-wrapped-around-his-hips-while-he-lifts-her close, but now that he has no reason for it -

 

“That’s not why I’m staying,” he blurts.

 

Rose’s eyes go wide. She stares up at him, and there are definitely - definitely  _stars_ in that stare.

 

It is a very bad time to remember Rose’s lips touching his in the glaring light of an explosion. A moment admittedly very hard to forget, but - a  _bad time_.

 

A bad time to remember the last thing Rose had chosen to do before she thought she was gone for good.  _Why is it that kisses always seem to be reserved for goodbyes?_ he wonders, and Rose’s gaze falls to his mouth. A  _very_ bad time.

 

“That’s not what I meant,” he whispers hoarsely.

 

Rose grabs his sleeve as though to stop  _him_ from toppling over. “I know.”

 

He has to think fast to salvage this moment - and so he grabs Rose under the arms once again.

 

She frowns, perhaps thinking he’s pushing her away. “What are you doing?”

 

He smiles, hesitant. “Nothing much.” He  _lifts_ , and she squeaks. “Just a form of protest.”

 

* * *

Nines is speechless, but FN-2187, grinning from ear to ear, can’t stop his question. “What in the name of  _Snoke’s left toe_  are you doing?”

 

“Left toe?” says Slip casually. “That’s a new one.”

 

“ _What are you doing_?”

 

“Something we used to do on my homeworld.” Slip rounds his shoulders, slumps toward Zeroes, lower and lower to the ground with every step - every step, which he times perfectly with the low concussions in the music coming from the distant forest. “It’s called  _dancing_.”

 

Zeroes stiffens. “That’s illegal,” he says, his voice hardening for the first time in ages. “You shouldn’t -”

 

Nines interrupts him without mercy. “Give us a little twirl, and you’ll convince me.”

 

FN-2187 stifles a snort, but not at Slip’s dancing. He forgets, sometimes, that Slip was taken at six standard years. He remembers his homeworld, too.

 

Slip sticks up his nose haughtily, straightens, and gyrates his hips, opening and closing his knees. Nines’ sneering smile softens. It looks -

 

It looks  _fun_.

 

Slip grins, triumphant. “On your feet, you sorry bucketheads. I’ll teach you.”

 

* * *

Clomping footsteps sound down the hallway, and all four of them freeze. A dark, hulking shape materializes from the gloom, and FN-2187 locks eyes with a familiar, dumbfounded stare.

 

Nines has Slip in a headlock. Zeroes is sitting on the command platform, slumped so far sideways as he tries not to fall asleep that he’s in constant danger of collapsing to the floor. FN-2187 has just barely got the hip movements right.

 

He’d forgotten that Kylo Ren had come on this mission, too.

 

Ren with no cowl on. Ren without his mask. Ren clearly having just boarded the ship from having been outside, alone, in the middle of the night.

 

Ren looks at each of them in turn, his gaze heavy, cold, and judging. He looks FN-2187 in the face one last time.

 

Then he gives an enormous roll of his eyes, crosses the room in silence, and disappears down the corridor.

 

“Who in the kriffing hell was  _that_?” grumbles Nines.

 

* * *

By the time they’re halfway back to their residency, knees and ankles a bit sore from Slip’s “teaching,” bodies still tense from the close call, FN-2187’s mind is  _racing_.

 

“You weren’t so bad at that,” Nines whispers, drawing abreast of him. “Just not as good as me.”

 

“I want to see it in real life someday,” FN-2187 says. In the high of their enjoyment, it had seemed, at the time, such an innocent thing to say. “People who dance to music. Other worlds - no fighting. We could do it one day, you know. Get out of here. See the galaxy.”

 

Nines stops walking.

 

FN-2187’s blood runs cold; he turns.

 

Nines has got his helmet back in place, but it doesn’t take much imagination for FN-2187 to picture the look on his squadmate’s face. “I’m gonna pretend,” he says softly, “you didn’t just say that.”

 

Nines, who is the most loyal of them all.

 

FN-2187 takes a slow breath. “I meant after the war is over,” he says calmly. “Getting some freedom.”

 

“This  _is_ freedom.” Nines is standing so terribly still. “You and me, we’re not like Zeroes. We’re on the winning side.  _And_ we’re free.”

 

“Nines -”

 

“You talk like that again, and I’m reporting you. Try it.”

 

Nines brushes past him, knocking shoulders. When FN-2187 woodenly catches up with the squad, Slip is at the back of the pack, waiting for him.

 

“I heard you back there,” he whispers, so neither Nines nor Zeroes can hear. “And I wanna go, too.”

 

* * *

Four years from now, Finn will hold a Jedi’s weapon in his hand. Nines will call him  _traitor_. He will throw his blaster and shield aside and try to electrocute him, kill him, with a riot control baton, as though he can shock FN-2187’s heart back to life, make him shed Finn like a mistaken skin.

 

He will take a bowcaster bolt to the chest before he can try. Finn will watch him die, and hope that there is freedom in death, because the way Hux always howled  _-AND EVEN IN DEATH, YOU SERVE THE SUPREME LEADER_  had always made it sound like bondage.

 

FN-2187 had once thought -  _if there’s freedom out there, one day, I’m taking those three with me._

 

Things change.

 

* * *

Finn sets Rose down so her feet are standing on his, and then he  _moves_.

 

She splutters into laughter, her neck arched back so her face won’t accidentally bang into his chest. “What are you  _doing_?”

 

“A lost art of the First Order Stormtroopers -”

 

“ _Dancing_?”

 

“I’m not hurting your leg, am I?”

 

“No. Just my dignity.”

 

“Well, that was the whole point, so.”

 

He can’t do much - a whole person with all their weight on just your feet is no small thing - so he can only marginally mimic Slip’s rhythm from long ago, always making sure he’s as on time with the Ewoks’ distant drum beats as he can manage, and Rose clings to him and giggles until she’s pink in the face, which is worth every embarrassment, it turns out.

 

“Is this you trying to say you’re not leaving?” she gasps, her teeth a white curve in the darkness. “Showing off what our new commander can do?”

 

He looks her in the eyes and, for better or for worse, does a much better job at keeping his mouth shut this time. _I’m not leaving you. I’m not leaving Poe, and I’m not leaving Rey. (Not like I left them.)_  “I’m not gonna let the First Order win. We’re gonna be free one day.”

 

Rose wrinkles her nose up at him a bit and - a bad time  _again_ , a  _really bad time_ , but this time, he actually  _wants_ -

 

“This  _is_  freedom, dummy,” she says with a smirk. “As close as it gets.”

 

Finn’s no expert, but,  _but_ -

 

He brushes her hair back from her face. He’s tired of forgetting faces.

 

“Not yet, it’s not. You’ll see.”


End file.
